


Saving Moriarty

by Shayvaalski



Series: Criminal Minding [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blood, Implied Relationships, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-26
Updated: 2012-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-31 18:09:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even at his worst, Seb knows how to handle Jim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saving Moriarty

_look over your hills and be still_  
_the sky above us shoots to kill_

__

 

Sebastian hits the floor just in time. There is an explosion just overhead, and he curses, groping for his rifle and not finding it. One hip bone, and the palms of his hands, feel bruised and raw where his whole weight came down on them. Another burst of sound, closer this time, and a roar of frustration, and Seb takes the opportunity to roll beneath the couch. It's a stupid piece of furniture, bought on a whim and much too tall to sit on comfortably, but in a situation like this, it's all but vital. 

When there have been no explosions for several seconds, Seb breaks cover, arrowing for the kitchen doorway, taking the kind of evasive maneuvers he remembers so well from the Afghani desert. He stays low, half-crouching; his opponent now is less well armed, but more dangerous. 

  


Seb lunges up from his crouch like a tiger leaping for a deer, and Moriarty goes down hard. There's a grunt as they hit the floor, air going out of both of them, and then Sebastian feels teeth lock onto his collarbone. Jim bites like he kisses: hard, with an eye to drawing blood. Seb lifts his body, drops it down, and his boss's head cracks against the tile.

"Think you can take me, Sebby?" Jim's voice is bubbling and high-pitched, equally close to a giggle and a scream, pupils blown. "Going to  _kill_  me? Shove your gun down my throat and pull the trigger, huh,  _Moran?_  You'd like that. You'd get off on that, wouldn't you?" He twists, trying to wriggle out from under, arching his hips up into Seb's. Bruised skin pulls; Sebastian grits his teeth, says nothing. "All blood and brain everywhere, boom, dead, what a lovely mess all over and  _you_  right in the middle of it--" The veins are starting to stand out in his neck, in his temples; there is a little blood at the corners of his mouth.

"Take a fuckin' breath, boss, before you pass out." If Jim passes out, Seb thinks, almost wistfully, he will have the rest of the morning to himself. He has grocery shopping to do still, and the closet is a mess. Gentling Jim has the potential to take hours.

"Don't tell me what to DO, Bastian. I  _own_  you, every stone-stupid military inch of your body belongs to ME, do you under _stand_?"

"Yup." Seb slides the hand that is not pinning Jim's wrists together down the smaller man's side, checking for the weapons he knows are hidden beneath the clean lines of Westwood. Moriarty bucks, and his forehead slams into the bridge of Sebastian's nose, which begins to bleed all over both of them. Without thinking, Seb leaves his systematic search behind and drops his forearm hard into Jim's windpipe, so that he is gasping and laughing and choking all at once. 

Seb wipes his face as best he can against his undershirt, which is, he thinks with exasperation, the third one he has lost to Jim and blood this month, while still keeping the man more or less pinned down. He can feel Jim's heart in his chest, careening out of control, and Seb, briefly, presses harder. 

Moriarty spits in his face. When Seb jerks backwards he crows in delight, then hisses, "Thinking of your army days, Sebby? Who'd you last do this to, some poor afghani? Your _bunkmate_? That why they kicked you out, can't be controlled, problems with  _anger_ , he was such a  _good_  soldier til he went feral--" His voice is ragged and flat and furious. "--come on, Bastian, hit me like you hit them, just try it and _see--_ "

Seb shakes his head, sweat and blood in his eyes, and in rough movements hauls himself upright and Jim's hands back down his side. One more shift and his whole weight is dropping down on Jim's belly, his knees pressing into his employer's upper arms so that he cannot reach up and grab and claw. Seb sits upright, hands finally free, and Moriarty never stops his snarling stream of rage. 

Sebastian squeezes the very top of his nose, head tilted forward, and then, because there is nothing else in reach and he hates the way blood feels when it dries on his skin, pulls off his shirt and begins to mop his face clean. A knee crashes into his spine, but Jim's litany is starting to slow. Any minute now. Any second.

There. 

"Sebbyyyy." He looks down to see Jim, wide-eyed, innocent as early spring and streaked with blood, pouting up at him. "Sebby you aren't  _mad_  at me, are you?" He shifts his trapped hips, just a little, pressing them against Sebastian. "Let me up, Seb, I'll even beg, pretty  _please_ , sweetheart, I  _promise_  I'll be good."

The shirt is a dead loss, and Sebastian tosses it into a corner. By this time tomorrow, it will be replaced without anything being said, and Seb suspects this is as close as Moriarty will ever get to apologizing.  He doesn't move, listening without hearing as Jim's voice, pitched high the way it always gets around now, begins to smooth out, watching his pupils shrink to normal size. The first time this happened, six months after his discharge (Jim slamming into his chest as soon as he unlocked the door, a kitchen knife adding another curving scar to the full-strike four already there, the whole memory a shock of blood and bruising and the way Jim looked when flung against the wall), Sebastian had let Moriarty go too early.

It's not a mistake he plans to make again. Soon Jim will smile in the way that says he's begun approaching sanity as closely as it's possible for him to come, will make the face that means he's noticed that he hurts. Soon Sebastian will pick him up, wash the blood from Moriarty's hair and check his body for broken bones, listen to him fret over ruined clothes and shattered chairs. The rest of the morning will be quiet, and that night Jim will be restless, and hungry for the kill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics taken from "Thistle and Weeds" by Mumford and Sons.


End file.
